Students, Apply Now for Google Summer of Code 2010!

Students, want to gain real world software engineering experience and get paid? We are now accepting applications for Google Summer of Code™ 2010, the Google global program to introduce students, ages 18 and over, to the wonderful world of Open Source development.

For the sixth Google Summer of Code, students can choose from 150 Free and Open Source software projects, in technical areas as diverse as gaming to humanitarian efforts to operating system design. All accepted students will be paired with a mentor from academia or industry and will receive coaching in all aspects of software development over the course of their three month coding project. Successful students will receive a stipend of 5000 USD for their participation in the program.

Check out the program Frequently Asked Questions and the extensive set of resources for student applicants on the program wiki, then talk to your prospective mentors about your ideas. Each mentoring organization has provided an Ideas List to help you learn more about what the project needs and to get your creative juices flowing. You’ll also note that each organization has provided tags to help you better understand their technical focus areas, so if you’re looking for opportunities to, say, geek out on gaming or hack on networking, you can narrow the list of organizations based on various tags.

The mentors are also very excited to hear from students who have their own plans for improving the projects’ code bases, so let their ideas inspire rather than constrain you. You can find knowledgeable folks on hand to answer questions in #gsoc on Freenode and on the program discussion list, or you can keep up with the announcements on various social networking sites.

Google will be accepting student applications through April 9, 2010 at 19:00 UTC. Best of luck to all of the student applicants, and get those applications going!